Birth and Decay

There is a way in which

I will always love you.

There is a shore which

My ghost will never leave.

The thump of waves against my heart…

To know a particular person

Is to be split open,

Dripping juice,

To be cracked along the grain.

Birth and decay.

Rain falls,

Battering your corpse into atoms,

Turning flesh into soil.

I am trying to plant a seed,

But, greedy hands dig and dirty

In the night, eat new beginnings

Before they start.

Birth and decay.

I am enraptured with the shape of a memory.

I have stepped into a world which no longer exists.

Its foreign matter rejects me.

The heart,

Unable to pump blood to body and brain,

Spilling bright red,

They say the iron is nutritious.

The air cannot move without it.

Birth and decay.

The tree falls.

Promises break.

I know that a new life will be born in its place,

Empty space is always filled,

But will it grow as beautifully?

Must things die for others to be born?

My grandmother sits by the shore

For the last time,

Listening to the waves.

She is going to die.

We talk about the air conditioning.

Birth and decay.

I have left my home

To learn a new language,

To walk down different roads.

Birth and decay.

I have tried to freeze time,

But left it out overnight.

It has begun to thaw.

Birth and decay.

I have broken continuity.

I have tried to leap across the chasm

Between two functions,

To defy physics.

Birth and decay.

The body has started to rot.

Disinfect it,

Chop off the bad parts,

Or get sick.

Birth and decay.

I only get to live once.

I am going to die.

Birth and decay.

You used to love me,

And now you do not.

Birth and decay.

Birth and decay.

Birth and decay.

The future is a black box,

But I am not dead yet,

I am going to live.

I will continue to change.

Birth and decay.